Brittany Ghiroli, senior MLB writer at The Athletic
episode
Breaking In with Kevin Fishbain: A Sports Media Podcast
38 min
3 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
How did Brittany Ghiroli’s early love of sports shape her career path?
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Breaking In with Kevin Fishbane, brought to you by the National Sports Media Association. This is the podcast that tells the origin stories of your favorite sports media personalities. It's episode 67, and my guest is Brittany Giroli, senior writer for The Athletic covering Major League Baseball. Britt was named the Washington, D.C. Sports Writer of the Year in 2019 by the NSMA. With it being MLB All-Star Week, I thought this was the perfect time to talk to one of our esteemed national baseball writers. Jerole grew up a diehard sports fan on the East Coast. She swam in Michigan State, and you'll hear about the first internship she got, her initial stories for the Lansing State Journal, how she created an internship for herself in Orlando, all the while setting up the chance to work for MLB.com.
Britt's experience getting an internship with the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, and how she took advantage of it, and how she did the same in 2009, offer great examples into themes of this podcast. Shooting your shot. The more you can do. Make yourself indispensable. All that work eventually landed Jolie her first full-time gig covering the Baltimore Orioles. You'll even hear me remember on this show live the time that I misspelled the MLB internship coordinator's name in an email. Before we get to Britt, a reminder of recent episodes. Last week was Ross Dellinger, college football writer for Yahoo, and prior to Ross was Sean McDonough, play-by-play legend for ESPN in the Boston Red Sox. You'll hear more later this episode about our presenting sponsor, the National Sports Media Association.
You can follow them on social at NSMA Sports Media. All right, here's how Brittany Giroli broke in. Britt Giroli, our senior national MLB rider at The Athletic and a former NSMA Washington, D.C. Sports Rider of the Year. Britt, thanks for joining the show.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Happy to be here. I've got my award. I'm in the way, but I've got my award back here.
There you go. Those were in your Washington Nationals beat writer days, if I recall.
Yes. Yes.
And now you're covering the whole league for us. Do some great work, investigative stories, feature stories. But we're going to get to the beginning in this podcast. And I want to know first, when did you what do you remember about your early interest in sports and maybe how that translated into wanting to get into sports writing?
Sure. So I grew up in Connecticut, a small town called Brantford, and I'm one of four girls. My dad really wanted a boy, super into sports. And when they had four girls, he's like, you know what? I'm just going to raise them as if they were boys. I'm going to raise them how I want to raise them, which is exactly what happened. I grew up Playing street hockey and listening to WFANs like the warmups of the New York Rangers. We were a huge NHL family. We were a huge baseball family. We were a huge football. We were just a sports family. On the weekends, my dad would listen to European soccer and we would play soccer in the house. We had a big screen TV in the living room. He'd have it on. We'd set up goals. I mentioned the street hockey that also took place at my house.
My dad would cut out little boxes to make net to make like goals, which was really hard to score. For my 10th birthday, I went to Boston to the Boston Bruins charity event. It's like the charity wives auction back when they played at the Fleet Center. Got all these autographs. I collected hockey cards. I did taekwondo. You're probably like, oh, my gosh, I just asked one question. She won't be quiet. I have a black belt in taekwondo. All my sisters did karate. We played with army men. So sports were always a huge, huge part of my life. I went to Michigan State. I was a swimmer. Sports have always been a big part of my life. And nobody ever told me like. Oh, you can't do that. You're a female. You're a girl. No, my dad encouraged that.
We had scrapbooks of every team that I liked. All of my sisters and I liked different teams when it came to football, when it came to hockey.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Brittany Ghiroli’s early love of sports shape her career path?
0:10–5:17
2
What lessons did she learn from her first internships at Fox Sports Detroit and College Sports TV?
5:17–10:43
3
How did she create and secure an unpaid internship with the Orlando Sentinel?
10:43–15:09
4
What was the breakthrough moment that landed her the MLB.com internship with the Tampa Bay Rays?
15:09–21:09
5
How did she transition from an unpaid intern to a full‑time beat writer for the Baltimore Orioles?
21:09–24:42
6
What challenges did she face as the first female beat writer on the Orioles beat and how did she earn respect?
24:42–29:22
7
What key habits and skills does she recommend for aspiring sports journalists today?
29:22–33:33
8
What final advice does Brittany give to newcomers trying to break into sports media?
33:33–38:15
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Breaking In with Kevin Fishbain: A Sports Media Podcast
Mike Hall, Big Ten Network studio host
Tom Waddle and Marc Silverman, hosts of "Waddle and Silvy" on ESPN 1000 Chicago
Adam Schein, host of "Schein on Sports" on SiriusXM
Christine Brennan, USA Today columnist and author of "On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women's Sports"
Ross Dellenger, Yahoo senior college football reporter
Sean McDonough, ESPN play-by-play broadcaster